Israel is nearing the goals it had set for its war in the Gaza Strip, but will continue the offensive on Hamas for the time being, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says.

"This is a time to translate our achievements into the goals we have set," Mr Olmert said at the start of a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

"Israel is approaching these goals, but more patience and determination are required in order to reach these goals in a manner that will change the security reality in the south in a way that will allow our citizens to live in security and stability over a long period of time.

"We must not let what has been achieved through unprecedented national effort slip through our fingers."

Days after Israel and Hamas both shrugged off a UN Security Council resolution to immediately stop the fighting, Mr Olmert reiterated that the Jewish state would not bend to international pressure in deciding when to stop its offensive.

"No state in the world, including those preaching to us, would have shown the patience and restraint similar to what we have shown," he said.

"We knew that this would not be an easy struggle. And we do not delude ourselves that what seems natural and obvious to any other state in the world would be received with acceptance when dealing with the state of Israel.

"We have never agreed for someone else to decide for us that we can strike those sending bombs toward our homes and kindergartens.

"We will not agree to that in the future, either.

"Our sense of responsibility and our duty to defend our citizens brought us - following numerous warnings - to the inevitable decision" to launch the war, he said.

Calls for cooperation

Meanwhile, leading Lebanese Shiite cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah has called for cooperation between "the three Islamic poles" of Iran, Egypt and Turkey to create balance in the region.

"It is possible to correct the military and political imbalance in the region on the basis of which the (Israeli) enemy waves its military and security machinery in the face of the Arabs," he said in a statement.

"This is through Islamic cooperation between three essential poles in the region and they are Iran, Turkey and Egypt."

Mr Fadlallah said that Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip amounted to an attack on Arab and Islamic liberation movements as a whole.

"We had wanted and still hope for an active Arab role in the Palestinian question and in the region as a whole," the cleric said.

"However, many of the Arab rulers themselves turned down a role of that size," he added in reference to the failure of Arab states to hold a summit because some states, such as Egypt, were not in favour.

Since the Israeli offensive began on December 27, at least 854 people have been killed, including 270 children, and another 3,490 wounded, according to Gaza medics.